“There are only two kinds of people in the world. The Irish and those who wish they were.”
– Irish Saying

While I know that St. Patrick’s Day is a mostly Irish-American phenomenon, it was something I’ve enjoyed celebrating in a very green way from my childhood until now. When I was in grade school, my mom would temporarily dye my hair bright green with food coloring and send me to class decked out in all green clothes as well. My teachers got a kick out of this and would show me around to different classrooms so everyone else could see my green garb from head to toe. This all stopped one year when it took 3 weeks for the green to wash out of my very platinum blonde hair! Yikes.

I was delighted to find the romanesco cauliflower at our local co-op, which is a green colored veggie that looks like little Christmas trees. Perfect for our green-themed dinner!While pickled carrots are probably not the most traditional Irish meal, I found it made a great addition to the flavor profile for the evening.

As a big fan of Gardein’s products, I was glad that I had some Turk’y Cutlets with gravy leftover in the freezer from a big sale I was lucky to hit around Christmas time. These went perfect with everything else.A couple of years ago a friend made a vegan Irish Cream for us, but I’m not sure what recipe was used. A quick search online landed me the easy-to-make and very delicious recipe from Oh She Glows. I don’t even like coffee or whiskey, but this hit the spot and was like a divine dessert after supper.We ended the night with a viewing of the campy Soylent Green: The miracle food of high-energy plankton gathered from the oceans of the world! It doesn’t get more green than that.

Wanting to depart from a super carb and calorie heavy St. Patrick’s Day meal, I opted on the lighter side this year. Traditional Irish meals are meat, potatoes, and hearty breads. I decided to keep the potatoes, omit the bread, and focus on greens in everything. Our menu this year was a veganized colcannon, tofu Irish stew, and fresh pressed Leprechaun juice!

I’ve made colcannon in the past, which is a traditional Irish dish consisting of potatoes and cabbage. I used the VegNews Colcannon recipe and omitted the leek, doubled the kale (as I didn’t have any cabbage), replaced the margarine with 1 tablespoon of coconut oil, and used almond milk instead of soymilk. It was fantastic! It was a nice blend of potatoes and greens or as Mr. Tuxedocat says, “It’s hard to go wrong with ‘taters and kale!”

Next on the menu was a peppery Unbeef Stew, also from VegNews. The protein base in this recipe was tofu with a mix of potatoes, onions, and carrots. I left out the margarine and added 1 1/3 cups of frozen peas to the dish to give it more color, nutrients, and green! This was quite tasty, although a reduction in the vegan worchestershire sauce may be in order to cut down the sweetness of the dish. I didn’t have time to cook this recipe overnight in a slow cooker, as the original recipe called for, so I just did it on the stovetop for approximately 1 hour.

Colcannon & Unbeef Stew

In staying with the healthier theme of the menu, we avoided green beer, and went for true greens with my homemade Leprechaun juice! Using an Omega Juicer, I made a spicy, sweet, green beverage.

Cut the veggies and fruit into smaller pieces that can fit down the juicer shaft. Juice everything, making sure to juice the softer ingredients (like kale) first, followed by harder ingredients, such as carrots, to help it go down. Makes approximately 16 ounces of juice. Drink and enjoy!

Leprechaun juice

This was a fairly low calorie meal. A serving of the colcannon (based on 6 servings) was 230 calories. A serving of the Unbeef Stew (based on 4 servings) was 151 calories. Eight ounces (half of the recipe) for the Leprechaun Juice was 100 calories. The total for this meal was 481 calories! A guiltless, green, gourmet meal. Who can beat that?

*Keeping with my cheesy St. Patrick’s Day tradition, we watched Leprechaun 2 this weekend for good measure.

Overall, we’d rate this dinner 3 out of 5 carrots on the veganlicious scale!